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Ft. Bragg Training Update: Public Face and Family Face Defined

gary

Hello there.

This is Gary Klugiewicz. Peter Harrell, Pete Jaskulski, and I recently completed another Basic Verbal Defense & Influence Class for the Psychological Operations (PSYOP) training center at Ft. Bragg, NC. This is a series of training classes that were developed to assist our soldiers in communication under stress with governmental officials from difference countries that span multiple cultures and languages.

Needless-to-say, this has been both interesting and challenging for us. What was most interesting challenge was the translation of our material into the military mindset and delivery system. What became immediately apparent is that people still are people and the basic tactical communication concepts and tactics apply across culture and language.

Like all Verbal Defense & Influence Classes, we showed that these communication skills applied not only to communication with the attendee’s customers which in this case were foreign nationals but how to apply these communication skills to the way they interact with their organization, as well as how they communicate with their families, friends, and other people that they meet.

At the Ft. Bragg Class, we expanded our definitions of personas that people have to wear during communication beyond Professional Face which describes how you perform while on duty and Personal Face which describes what you can say when you are able to say exactly what you think. We found out that there is a lot of space in between these two extremes that need to be better explained and controlled. We define Public Face as the persona you use when in public. You may be off duty but if you are recognized or later identified, you still need to behave in a professional manner. You may be off duty but you are not invisible or free from the need to represent your agency in the proper manner. We also defined Family Face which is the persona you need to use when you first get home – especially after a very bad day. You can’t just perform an emotional dump on your family. You need to control yourself, decompress, and then begin a much more pleasant interaction with you family. To quote Jack Hoban from the Resolution Group International (www.resgroupintl.com), “Whenever I return home, everyone is happy to I am there.”

The addition of Public Face and Family Face truly help to keep professionals physically, legally, and emotionally safer.

You may want to think about adding these personas to your professional and personal communication arsenal.